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Just a Thought - The iPod "Fad"
by - January 20th, 2004
Fad \Fad\, n. [Cf. Faddle.]
A hobby; freak; whim.
You've no doubt read that Dell CEO Kevin Rollins has as much as dismissed Apple's iPod as a "fad". For many iPod owners, calling the iPod a fad is like saying that breathing is a passing fancy; merely a footnote along the path of evolution.
Webster's perennial dictionary defines fad as a hobby, freak, or a whim. In that regard, maybe Mr. Rollins is correct in his assessment of Apple's popular player.
A hobby is an activity we like to do when we have time to do them. I can think of a diaper load of stuff that people are into to keep themselves occupied, from nude ballroom dancing to origami. (I imagine that someone may enjoy nude origami, but I'd be wary of the unfortunate paper cut.)
Hobbies are what we enjoy as oppose to what we may do for a living. If you are a lucky stiff, your hobby and your job are one in the same, but most folks work to earn a living, and have several hobbies to occupy their time away from work.
I use to keep fresh water fish before I moved to Florida. I absolutely enjoyed it (even though I was fully clothed), and I do believe it was one of the few diversions available to me at that time that allowed me to remain sane while dealing with the pressures of a new job, new career, and new daughter.
One of my other hobbies was collecting and listening to music. My album collection had reached 500+ by the time CDs became widely available. I still have about 300 albums.
Today my iPod allows me to take my music with me, offering a bit of serenity in the hustle of my daily life.
So, is my iPod a hobby? Yeah, I would say so.
Mr. Webster defines 'freak' as a sudden causeless change of mind, a whim of fancy, a vagary, a caprice.
I'm not sure how the iPod fits in that definition, unless you allow that the iPod does let you change your mind about what you are listening to easily. Don't like what's playing? Hit a button and something else plays. It's all your music, the stuff you like at some time or another, so you are bound to find something that strikes your fancy.
So, iPod as a freak? Freakin' A!
How about the iPod as a whim?
When the iPod first came out I might have agreed with anyone who might claim that the little white music player would be little more than a rather expensive toy. I mean, it's a music player, for cryin' out loud! How pedestrian is that?
What I didn't think about, and what Mr. Rollins has also overlooked, is that while the iPod, in its current incarnation, might exist for a few years, the iPod as a concept may hang around for a very, very long time. Why? Because it's a music player, and, as Steve Jobs has so eloquently put it; "It's about the music, stupid!"
By bonding the iPod so closely to something that is so fundamental to people, Apple has all but guaranteed that the iPod, in one form or another, will be around to let people play music they way they want to, where ever they want to, and however they want to.
The iPod a whim? Only time will tell, but it looks like the little player that could, can, and will be around for some time to come.
Well, Mr. Rollins, as Meatloaf might tell you, two out of three ain't bad.
Pet rocks were fads, streaking was a fad, naming your kids after weeds or tree bark was a fad; music is not a fad.
And iPod is about the music.
is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He's been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.
You can send your comments directly to me, or you can also post your comments below.
Most Recent Columns From Just A Thought
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- Power to the People - September 1st
- Too Soon To Zune - August 28th
The Just A Thought Archives
Observer Comments
Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:07 pm Subject:
QuoteGuest wrote:
Vern Seward is the worst writer at TMO.
I had to take Journalism 101, and one of the first things they taught us was to avoid cliche'd editorials, such as 'the dictionary defines so and so as..."
Well then Dave Barry flunked Journalism 101 too. Wish I had his money, though.
Pulitzer prize winning journalism? No. A decent read? Yes.
Lighten up. You'll live longer.
Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:10 pm Subject: a new dictionary entry
Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:12 pm Subject: Not necessarily bad writing
Thu Jan 20, 2005 2:44 pm Subject: My Style
For those of you who don't like what I write: that's fine. Don't read it.
For those of you who do, thanks for the vote.
Bryan let's me write whatever comes to mind about nearly any subject, which is why you get poems, fiction, and dictionary definition based pieces in my column. If you are looking for hard journalism, I am not your guy; I don't have the time and Bryan does not pay me enough to write bitting editorials. Beside, it's not me. I would not write stuff like that if Bryan did pay me enough; at least, not in this column.
As someone pointed out, the column is called Just A Thought. That's what it is about: It's a thought I've had on a particular subject and decided to share it. You don't have to like it, or agree with it, but if you read it and think about it, you might form an opinion of your own. You might also get a bit of entertainment too; I make feeble attempts at humor in most of my writing.
If you can't get with the program, have a nice life.
As for being the worse writier here at TMO, I'll agree. I suck, but don't tell Bryan. He actually pays me real money for this crap.
I should mention that I actually like the stuff I write, so I make no apologies (except for grammatical and spelling errors), for anything that appears in my column.
Vern Seward
I, too, enjoy his writing.
I hate reading robotic, "journalism 101" crap you find in the newspaper or stuck-up publications. Something should be written as to encourage people to read it (and have them enjoy it), not simply to follow some pathetic standard decided by the chumps who failed as journalists and went on to teach "Journalism 101."
That's why I love publications like TMO, MacAddict, and Apple-x: they add some personality to their articles; they're worth reading and they're entertaining.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Seward!
-Dan Pourhadi
How in heck can the CEO of Dell say the iPod is a fad when they are selling something to compete with it? If this is not a sustainable business concept then Dell is admitting they have no vision, that they are just going wherever the winds of change push them like a tumbleweed, and we all know what eventually happens to tumbleweeds. Didn't this guy even think about what he was saying? Amazing.
BTW I like Vern's columns. They make me stop and think about something I might not have paid any attention to (whoops!!). The underlying idea is way more important than the prose style.
If the iPod is a fad then the Model T, the Walkman, and the Amana Radarange were all fads as well. Sometimes a single product can change the paradigm so much that even after it goes out of production its effects can still be seen.
Apple has shown that a small stylish personal music device coupled with an easy way to purchase and download audio files can work. Eventually the iPod will be superseded by something that does the same thing better. That's the way of consumer products. In the mean time Apple will sell a heck of a lot of them, Dell won't, and I'd put money on the next best thing coming from Apple not Dell.
Sat Jan 22, 2005 5:20 pm Subject: RE: Robotic Journalism 101
QuoteGuest wrote:Quotepourhadi wrote:
I hate reading robotic, "journalism 101" crap you find in the newspaper or stuck-up publications. Something should be written as to encourage people to read it (and have them enjoy it), not simply to follow some pathetic standard decided by the chumps who failed as journalists and went on to teach "Journalism 101."
I agree (though not quite as vehemently). The use of cliches is one trap of writing, but another is to be a slave to proclaimed "rules"; correspondingly, it is a trap of judgment (to which students are prone, especially if their exposure to the subject is limited) to dismiss an article, and even a writer, because one of them is broken, without considering whether the "violation" is justified by the effect.
I wouldn't consider a dictionary reference as a cliche, cliches being almost always unfortunate, but as a standard device. It can be overused, but it has its place. If it helps make the point clearly and compactly, then it shouldn't be condemned. Intelligent expression of opinion, infused with personality, is valuable, and rarer than it should be. I wouldn't dismiss it just because it doesn't additionally provide great stylistic novelty, or worse, orthodoxy.
In the internet age, we might recall an older idea of the essay, with its sense of endeavor and incompleteness; which offers its own limitations and possibilities, and should be judged accordingly.
Agreed and well put.
In the purest sense, I suppose I can be considered a journalist; I write about news events, but my style is unorthodox, to say the least. I try not to conform to any defined standards when relating an idea because, when it is all said and done, it doesn't 'feel' right to me. That's because I like to tell stories, and I have a hard time being 'journalism 101' serious about anything. I think that shows up in my writing.
At any rate, how I write is how I write. As with any author of any writing, you'll either like my style, or you won't. As for the information my articles attempt to convey; if you get it, good; that was the point, and my style did not get in the way of you getting the point. If you don't get it, well, there are other writers writing about the same thing somewhere else, maybe you'll get it from them.
Thank you, and to everyone for posting your thoughts, both positive and negative, about my writing style. I welcome any and all constructive criticism from anyone.
Vern Seward
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